Research: The Next Left?

Research summary

This project seeks to explain the crisis facing Centre-Left politics and the rise of the new radical political movements - providing insights into the future of left-wing politics in Europe.

It does this through a qualitative comparative study of Centre-Left parties and new Radical Left parties and movements in the UK, Germany and France.

Political scientists warned for years that Europe faced a crisis of democratic representation as its mainstream governing parties converged on one another.

Since the 2008 financial crisis there has been an electoral collapse of mainstream Centre-Left parties and the rise of ‘anti-system’ populist parties across the political spectrum.

In particular, alternative radical left-wing parties and movements have sprung up, offering what they see as a break from the ideological capitulation of traditional social democratic parties to a neoliberal agenda.

Understanding the condition of European democracies, and the parties and programmes within them, will provide new perspectives on the future of our economies.